The publishing industry is quickly transitioning to the clouds and digital copies, and Amazon capitalized on this transition when it released the Kindle in 2007—thereafter, capturing 90% of the e-book market. A few months ago the Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple (along with other publishers), but New York Senator Charles Schumer is advising the DOJ to drop the case against Apple and other publishers.

The publishing industry is quickly transitioning to the clouds and digital copies, and Amazon capitalized on this transition when it released the Kindle in 2007—thereafter, capturing 90% of the e-book market. A few months ago the Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple (along with other publishers), but New York Senator Charles Schumer is advising the DOJ to drop the case against Apple and other publishers.

According to Sen. Schumer, Amazon has the majority of the e-book market share, and if the DOJ takes out Apple and other publishers, it will allow Amazon to create a monopoly. The e-book monopoly, Sen. Schumer claims, will allow Amazon to set the price of almost all future e-book products.

Apple filed a 31-page formal response to the DOJ back in May, stating that it did not “conspire” with publishers to promote sales of e-books on the iPad.

“The government starts from the false premise that an e-books ‘market’ was characterized by ‘robust price competition’ prior to Apple’s entry. This ignores a simple and incontrovertible fact: before 2010, there was no real competition, there was only Amazon.”

Basically, Apple accused the DOJ of supporting Amazon’s monopolistic quest rather than competition.

Sen. Schumer finalized his opinionated piece by saying that innovations in the publishing industry will become stagnant if an e-book monopoly is created. This returns to the notion that publishing is becoming more and more digitized, and if Amazon controls all aspects of e-books then it will also control the innovations.